For some time now, we’ve had bright red tulips blooming near the entrance of our house. For those of you who don’t know me very well, I have the furthest thing away from a green thumb. If you would judge me by the color wheel, in that way, mine would be a red thumb. Like those tulips. The exact opposite of green. I only mention this, because tulips are one of the few flowers I am able to identify, along with roses, and daffodils. That’s about where it ends.
Back to the bed of tulips. These may have been born in Holland, I don’t know. They came to us as bulbs, which were planted well below the surface of the ground. And not by me. But each spring, something happens down there. Little miracles really. Crazy as it seems, those tulips come right up through the dirt, about the same time each year. And they always look beautiful. It is quite a thing.
A couple of years ago, I tried the same thing with Planter’s Dry Roasted Peanuts, which I love. I thought perhaps if I dropped a few of the seedlings down there, we’d get dry roasted peanut plants. All we got were squirrels. With little shovels.
Anyway. Back to those tulips. I was sitting with them yesterday, briefly. Observing them. They looked beautiful even still. It has been a rough spring on them here. About a week or so ago, we had freeze warnings every day, for about three days in a row. In the morning, the tulips would be all bent over, having tried to stand there and be brave all night in the freezing cold. Hunched down, drooping, looking like they’d given out after those frigid hours, doing their best to hold their lines. I was sad for them, as I was sure they had died.
But hours later, when the sun came out, and the warmth hit their faces, their backs, they would stand once again, in beauty, in strength, in dignity. Since that time, we’ve had wind, and storms, which have blown the bejeezus out of them. They’re getting old. And worn down.
It’s getting time for them to go.
They’ve stood together in groups, those tulips. But I’ve noticed that no two of them are alike. Not in any way. And if one were missing, things would look much different than they do.
I said to one of them, “You know. A tulip like you doesn’t come along all too often. In fact, there’s never been a single tulip like you ever before. And there is never any possibility that another will come again. You, red tulip you.”
I think they really might be Danish. It didn’t say a word in return.
We are like those flowers in so many ways. In our uniqueness. Collectively, we are all standing around together on this really huge ball of dirt. Like tulips in a bed. But when you take a close look, there has never been someone just like you. And forevermore, there never will be. You see what no one else sees. You hear what no one else can hear. Believe me, you sing like no one else sings. And your perspectives, your feelings, your emotions, will never be duplicated by another soul. You are the only you.
The Universe would be lacking without you, because you’ve made a big difference here. In every life you’ve touched. Standing there in your beauty, your strength, your dignity.
The same day I noticed the tulips, I also saw seven frogs on our pond. Be thankful I didn’t write about them today.
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“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
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“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious – the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.”
— Albert Einstein
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“A conscious human is driven by their conscience, not popular opinion.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun
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